Art
No happier nor more appropriate title could have been devized by Mr. Richard Sickert, A.R.A., for his exhibition at the Leicester Galleries than " English Echoes." Mr. Sickert is in holiday mood and his series of canvases gives us a delightful reconstruction of an age which has passed. Eric Gill has remarked, " Nature is for the workman simply a dictionary, however well-beloved and inspiring, to which he may go for reference when necessary or when he chooses." Instead of taking, nature for his dictionary Mr. Sickert has gone to the wood-engravings of nineteenth-century illustrators—Georgie Bowers, Alfred Bryan, Adelaide Claxton, Kenny Meadows, Sir John Gilbert and Francesco Sargent, and has produced improvisations and comments in colour on the themes supplied by their wood-engravings. The result is a series of jewel-like canvases, thoroughly English in spirit, and instinct with an atmosphere of gaiety and exuberance which it would be hard to match. One of the best examples is Vicinique Pecus, after Kenny Meadows. Beside this may be placed Glencora, after John Gilbert, and She was the Belle of the Ball, after Adelaide Claxton. The Private View of the R.A., The Two Lags and An Expensive Half-sovereign should also be noticed. Portraits there are, too, done from the same formula, The G.O.M., after Bryan, is a rather cruel caricature, but Brougham, after a woodcut, and The Tichborne Claimant—a subject which has always appealed to Mr. Sickert—are excellent. This last is done from a photograph. It is surprising to find, or rather to be led to rediscover by Mr. Sickert, what an admirable sense of composition these nineteenth-century illustrators possessed, and we cannot be too grateful to him for allowing us to see these lovely reconstructions of the pictures which once adorned Punch, the Era, the Entr'acte, the London Journal, Bow Bells and all the rest of them ! Mr. Sickert adds to the catalogue, which incidentally has the merit of being illustrated in colour, a series of brief biographical notes of the artists who have been his sources for " English Echoes."
There is no single painting quite as good as the still life of
Dahlias, which was shown at Messrs. Tooth's gallery in the autumn, at the exhibition of Andre Bauchant's painting; at the Lefevre Galleries. There are, however, a number of flower pieces which do not fall very far short of that lovely example which M. Serge Lifer is fortunate enough to possess. Bauchant is a natural painter and his work is characterized by a certain simplicity and directness of outlook which compel admiration. Vase de Fleurs, Oiseaux, La Riviere, Tulips et Renoncules and Fuchsia should be noticed. The landscapes and figure compositions are much less unmannered and by that measure less successful. L'Orage sur la Campagne, however, has decided qualities of composition.
At the St. George's Gallery, Hanover Square, there is an
exhibition of pictures by Mr. Arthur Lett-Haines. Mr. Lett- Haines for his reference dictionary" uses moods, impressions and the evocation of stored recollection. Sometimes his material is a hundred per cent. fruitful, as in his best picture, Brighton Station. This is an interesting method, for Brighton Station is not a representation of a station of this world at all, but the recollection of a large, in some ways exciting, in some ways dreary, place where a small boy had to spend an hour or so at the beginning and end of each term on the journey between school and home. Piscatorial—a study of exuberantly exotic fishes—and Pigeons are evidence of Mr. Lett-Haines' admirable draftsmanship.
At the Claridge Gallery, M. Jean Varda is represented by an exhibition of mosaic panels, which arc extremely beautiful and of admirable design. M. Varda is a Greek artist who promises to be a very serious rival of Mr. Boris Anrep. Like Mr. Anrep, he works direct in his material and the mosaic has all the interest which can only be gained by this method. His compositions of fishes particularly are remarkable decora- tions. To-day it is, perhaps, a little too much to hope that the mosaic artist will ever have such a chance as he had in Venice, Ravenna and Rome, but the enthusiasm of such artists as Mr. Boris Anrep and M. Varda for this peculiarly lovely form of decoration is some consolation for the eclipse of an art which should share the honours which painting has to some extent usurped.
DAVID FINCHAM.
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